That under these circumstances I feel Myself entitled to demand respect for a Decree formed by the King of Norway in a Constitutional manner, is a matter for which no one can blame me. The powers which the Constitution grants the King, in order to further the good of the country to the best of his convictions, are not greater than that they ought to be preserved to the supreme power, so that no constitutional practices in conflict with the principles of the fundamental law are introduced, which, according to the explicit prescriptions in Sec. 112 may not be done, even by an alteration of the fundamental law. One of the chief principles of the Constitution--the most important of all, in point of fact--is that Norway shall be a Constitutional Monarchy. It is incompatible with this, that the King should sink to be a helpless tool in the hands of His Ministers. If, meanwhile, the members of the Council should have the power, by refusing countersignature, to hinder every future Royal Decree, the Norwegian King would be deprived of participating in the government. This position would be as lowering to the Monarch as injurious to Norway herself. To the circumstances that can thus be adduced against the validity, according to fundamental law, of the Prime Minister's refusal of Countersignature, and against the efficacy of the dogma that the King's Decree in order to be valid, must bear the responsibility of some member of the Cabinet, can be added, in questions touching the Union situation, two more reasons, which have their foundation in the fact that the King of Norway is also King of the Union. However opinions may have varied, respecting the conception of the unity which the Union agreements have created for the binding together of the two Kingdoms, one fact remains clear, that Royal power is also an institution of the Union. This position of the King's as being not only King of Norway or of Sweden, but also as Monarch of the United Kingdoms, makes it the King's duty, not to form decisions in conflict with the Act of Union Sec. 5, respecting the settlement of matters in one country, which would also affect the other. The King's duty in the aforesaid respect is incompatible with the opinion that the one Kingdom, by the refusal of Countersignature by its Prime Minister or otherwise, could undo a Royal Decree, by which he refused to make a resolution prejudicial to the other Kingdom or injurious to the Union. In Norway, when they endeavoured to adhere to an opposite opinion, when the Norwegian people claimed the right to force the King to form his decision in conflict with what he considers his right as King of the Union to concede, there was no other way of attaining this object than making the Union, and also the King of Sweden, in his actions, totally dependent on the will of the Norwegian people, its Storthing and its Cabinet.